Evening Hike and Fly

I haven't had an evening flight in the last 2 or 3 months - I'm much more into midday flying. I'll be visiting Scotland in the next few days (and I won't be taking a wing there) and recent conditions haven't warranted an afternoon flight, so I fancied an evening flight. The weather has been beautiful but cold for the last few days; very cold air has fought a warm sun and generally won.

After a decent day's work I packed my lightweight gear (beach harness, speed wing, warm clothes and not much else) and headed up the hill. The combination of cold air and lightweight gear made the hike up a real pleasure.

On launch I found around 20 pilots monitoring the wind strength; to me it seemed to be strong but launchable (with a normal wing). As I got ready, some pilots launched and by the time I joined them conditions were much less strong. With my little wing I struggled more than most as the lift weakened and slowly got lower before heading to the LZ after maybe 45 minutes. Everyone seemed to run out of lift at around the same time and landed together.

The circus is visiting St Andre and a bunch of pilots and I packed up our wings watched by various animals!